


Growth At It's Worst

by Godspeed_Cowboy



Category: Naruto
Genre: Abandonment, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Divergence, Coughing, Familial Love, Flowers, Gen, Gettin into shit you shouldn't, Guilt, Hanahaki Disease, Haruno Sakura Has Issues, Haruno Sakura is So Done, Haruno Sakura-centric, Hurt, I based Sakura's fashion in this off of Laura Les, I know where this is going, I listened to 100 gecs and Mistki while writing this bad boy, Language of Flowers, Major character death - Freeform, Mimicking, Moving On, No Romance, Now I know the tags with Hashirama and Madara look out of place, One Shot, POV Haruno Sakura, Plants, Platonic Relationships, Sad, Secrets, Sickness, Sneaking Around, Unrequited, Unrequited Love, but only in one sentence, but trust me, dying, implied MadaTobi, it isn't that bad but it could be written much better, like literally one, sloppy one shot that I made really quick, with life tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:26:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26091841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Godspeed_Cowboy/pseuds/Godspeed_Cowboy
Summary: Sakura knows that she's done for.OrMy twist and take on a Hanahaki AU
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Senju Hashirama, Haruno Sakura & Senju Hashirama & Uchiha Madara, Haruno Sakura & Uchiha Madara, Haruno Sakura & Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura & Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura & Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 17
Kudos: 168





	Growth At It's Worst

**Author's Note:**

> So I've kind of had this idea for a long while now, and I decided to write it out for the daily post today. Also I'm kind of doing this to avoid my school work LMAO
> 
> Twitter: @YeehawMitski

There is a secret that Sakura hides from her teammates.

It is not one too important, not to her, so she doesn’t tell anyone really, not unless they directly ask her. And so far, no one’s asked her a damn thing about it. So her lips stay zipped, glued, and sewn seven times over. 

Now, what would this secret be?

Well, it started when she joined her team, when she really got to know them. One thing led to another, and then another opened a whole case and then an entire path, and then Sakura had a realization at ages ten to eleven. 

She’d realized that she loved them, specifically she loved Naruto and Sasuke the most.

Now, this was not a romantic type of love, no. Far from it. If anything it was more platonic, more like family actually. Like brothers and sister. And at first it was one of the most euphoric feelings she could have had. 

And then _it_ started. The _secret_ started.

Sakura began to cough up flowers. She had gotten a case of Hanahaki Disease, something well known but not easy to catch, though it was fast to grow and even worse to treat.

It started with the roots. She’d coughed one up into her tea once, and for a moment she worried before brushing it off, as one should _not_ do when seeing the symptoms of the disease. She simply thought it a fluke, a mistake. She’d been dumb, she’d been stupid, she’d been a _child_ about it. 

Then leaves and blossoms came, the symptoms becoming worse. She’d nearly choked on it in her sleep, nearly choked on a tangle of plants. They were still too small to identify, though. Again, she’d brushed it off. This time, her excuse being that she didn’t want to _bother_ anyone. Again, she’d been foolish, childish, this time with a sprinkle of civilian work attitude.

Then the flowers and the petals had come. They were _hell_.

It was a mix of plants. Thyme, red and yellow tulips, but the two that came the most were spring crocuses and crab blossoms. Youthful gladness and ill nature.

It was easy to piece together just who the flowers belonged to. And then she grew ashamed, _embarrassed_. What would everyone think? What would _they_ think? Would they pity her, hate her, would she make things awkward? What, what, _what_? There’s no doubt people would look down on her, look down on her because they don’t love her back. She doesn’t want to think of the looks in their eyes or the consoling words on their tongues. 

So Sakura stayed quiet. This time her excuse is that it is already too late, she’d kept it a secret for so long that there would be no use telling anyone now. And not to mention, the hassle it would cause. 

So she went about her days even as the flowers grew and began to spread, even as it got harder to breathe, as she got gradually weaker, as her throat grew raw and sore with the amount of plants she coughed up.

For two years, she is silent about it. For two years, she suffers as she gains a new mentor, gains new skills. And she observes her boys, Naruto and Sasuke. And realizes that it was obvious they didn’t quite lover her back as much.

They were too caught up in each other.

And then, at the age of fourteen, she finds something.

She’s sent to clean out a dusty tomb under the Hokage Tower, chores that Tsunade doesn’t want to do disguised as discipline training, Sakura’s specific job being to organize it. And organize she does. She goes at it with as much vigor as she can muster when one has a hidden sickness.

By now, her body has begun to feel cold, boney, side effects of the sickness. Losing body heat because her body is slowly filling with flowers and taking up her pathways, losing weight because she can’t eat without her throat hurting. It’s hard to do much when you're sick and slowly losing your strength. She wears a dark sweater and a long skirt to match, one down to her ankles. It keeps her warm and hides her body, two birds with one stone.

What she finds is an unmarked journal, old and thick and faded and far past its prime. She opens it, to find out if there’s something on the inside that could clue her in on where she’s supposed to put it.

The words that greet her are bright and cheerful, the opening to a personal diary, one that belongs to a boy who claims to be thirteen.

Thirteen and named Hashirama Senju.

Sakura almost drops the book. 

This is important, incredibly so, and it belongs to Tsunade, rightfully so, she deserves to have a possession of her grandfather’s.

And then there’s a little voice in the back of her head.

_Open it, read it. Besides, you should be on break by now._

And she can’t really argue with the break part. She is unsure, very unsure, uneasy that someone will walk in at any moment and see her snooping, but she opens it anyway. And she reads. Reads and reads and reads. And when she has to leave, she bookmarks her page, around age fifteen. And the next day, she comes back, and she reads more.

No one comes to bother Sakura, no one even comes to look for her. Especially not Naruto and Sasuke. She’s pulled away an awful lot. So have they. Hardly any effort on either part.

She learns many things about Lord First, as the journal recounts everything from ages thirteen to fifty six, the time of his death. 

It takes her three months to get through the journal and it is well worth it.

The journal was given to him by Lord Second as a joke so he could “be emotional elsewhere”. Lord First is very expressive, open, silly, and kind. A ball of a person to be around for sure. His nickname was Hashi, his favorite color was yellow, his favorite food was anything savory, he absolutely loved the spring and the summer and he enjoyed being around people, talking and playing with them. The way he talks about his best friend, Madara Uchiha-sama, is so fond and light, the way he talks about Lord Second and his cousin Touka is loving and admirable (and she learns about the two brothers he mourns, Kawarama and Itama), and the way he talks about Mito Uzumaki-sama. Good god, he wrote five pages about her beauty alone. He talked about her like she was everything and anything. For him, she probably was.

The journal is so personal in the way it recounts Lord First’s life, so detailed, recounting all the good and the bad times. 

She starts to feel like she really knows him, like . . .

Like they were friends. She even starts to mimic him in some ways, a phrase here, a small habit there, hardly noticeable to anyone but herself. Sometimes she even talks to the air, a one sided conversation, but she can imagine his responses.

And then Sakura begins to cough up coreopsis and bay tree flowers (always cheerful, glory), yet she does not feel the regret that should be there. In fact, she almost feels at peace.

She turns fifteen, and Naruto and Sasuke don't talk to her anymore. No one really does. She has to buy warmer clothes, gets a small jacket for herself and another skirt so she can layer them.

And then she’s sent to clean out the tombs again, documents shipped in from clan compounds. She thinks the only reason they let her do it is because of how quiet she is, how civilian she seems, how much she looks like a girl who minds her own business.

Or maybe they think she’s a little too daft to understand what’s being given to her. Or they take one look at her, see that she looks like she could fall over any minute, and think that they should entrust their secrets with her because she’ll be gone soon enough.

Either way, it leads to Sakura finding another journal.

Ages eleven to thirty three, it recounts the life of Madara Uchiha-sama. 

Once again, she reads it, that little voice talking to her.

This one takes her about four months to get through, mostly because Tsunade wants her to start her Byakugou training.

Madara was an interesting character. He bought the journal so that he could have his own private space to really be himself, as there was not much privacy in a family like his. He had a temper, a big one, but he was also just as goofy as Hashirama and maybe even kinder, a man who loved many and helped who he could. His favorite color was blue, his nicknames were Mada or Madara-chan, he really liked sushi the most though he also loved any home cooked foods, his favorite season was winter because that’s when his birthday was, and he absolutely cared about anyone who took the time to get to know him, to allow him to attach himself to them. He talked about Hashirama with a fond and exasperated tone, talked about Mito and Touka like he was absolutely afraid of them, talked about his brothers in a sad yet loving way (Izuna was the only one he could remember clearly on a good day), and the way he talked about Lord Second was . . . amusing.

Madara had the fattest crush on him and it was very funny to her.

And once again, she feels like they’re friends.

Once again, she picks up habits, this time a little gesture or a hobby. No one notices the changes still, no one but her. She starts to have one sided conversations with him as well.

Then she coughs up amaryllis and violet (pride, loyalty and modesty). Still, she doesn’t feel guilt or regret about it.

Slowly, she stops coughing up crocuses and crab blossoms. Slowly, they are replaced with the amaryllis and bay tree flowers. 

Then she starts to cook the foods they like. Then she gets small things in their favorite colors, like clothes or dishes. Then she gets little stuffed animals they would have favored (Hashirama liked gators and Madara liked horses). Then she finds clothes that look like something they’d wear, though she simply collects them, not wear them herself.

She plants them in her backyard, seeds straight from her body. She takes excellent care of them, watches them grow beautiful and big.

And then, over the next few months, nearing her sixteenth birthday, she notices the strangest thing.

The way the plants grow, they look an awful lot like _bodies_. Like bouquets arranged just right, stems and flowers weaved through. Sakura ignores it, playing it off as imagination.

She sees them move slightly, like sloths or turtles. She plays it off as the wind.

Then she gets close one day as she’s watering them, just a week before her birthday, and on the amaryllis she sees a patch of _skin_. Pale smooth skin. She drops her watering can from where she’s crouching, looking at the bay tree’s flowers. Sure enough, she looks close and sees a scalp forming, strands of long dark hair falling down between smooth tendrils, vines that will soon look the same.

Oh no, that isn’t natural at _all_. She-She needs to get someone, neighbors, authorities, tsunade, _anyone_.

And then a hand shaped plant with veins forming in between the stems wraps its fingers around her wrist, loose and easy to pull out of. She freezes, looks up at what’s obviously meant to be the head. The vines that frame the “face” are wild, gnarly, and where the eyes should be are two, large, deep orange flowers, darker than the rest. They’re spinning slowly.

Sakura doesn’t know how she knows, but there’s a plea in the way it moves, in the way it sits. 

It’s asking her to spare them. The head of the bay tree body turns to look at her, asking the same question, part of an eye in the “socket”.

_Will you tell about us? Please, spare us, please, don’t tell?_

She takes a minute. Then nods. It feels right.

She picks up the can, and the plant hand lets go. She waters them as she waters the rest of her garden, one filled with plants that she had growing in her at one point or another. And walks back inside to make her mom’s tea blend that’s supposed to help soothe sore throats. 

For a week, they grow rapidly. She doesn’t let anyone visit her, and if they force their way in then she makes sure to not let them into her personal garden. To help, she puts down tags, ones that help conceal them, the bodies, a simple camouflage. 

She only ever hears about Naruto and Sasuke from gossip nowadays. Apparently Naruto is busy training somewhere. Sasuke is probably with that snake guy. Kakashi is definitely back in ANBU.

On Sakura’s sixteenth birthday, she finally forms the Byakugou. She is pale and frail and she looks like a ghost of the past, but she is still able to split a mountain in two and crush a body with her own in five seconds flat and her healing prowess is no joke or rumor to be told lightly, surpassing Tsunade. 

She steps out into her garden. Sleeping in the branches bay tree, a man with dark skin, long dark hair, and she’ll bet he has even darker eyes, like chocolate or hazel. Lazing in the stems of the amaryllis, a paler man with a wild mane of black hair and she knows he has eyes like midnight, his snores light.

She wakes them up, and they move slow, marveling at their new features and appendages. She is not bothered by their nakedness, she’s worked at a hospital after all. And the two of them cling to her like children, crying dirt and water onto her sweater as they wrap her in a crushing hug and speak in a language she doesn’t know, but by the tone she can say safely that they are thanking her. She gives them shirts and shorts to wear, though they need help putting them on.

They may have the form of fully grown human men, but she has the suspicion that they certainly aren’t.

“Hashirama?” she asks, voice small, quiet, and croaky.

The man turns his head and looks at her.

“Madara?”

The other one responds the same.

Alright, so they _do_ have names, familiar names.

Sakura doesn’t let anyone visit her, and this time she doesn’t budge when they try to force their way in, and people leave her alone entirely soon enough. 

The men are still navigating their new forms, though they’re skills are growing more and more each day. In quick succession, they learn how to write, how to dress and feed themselves (she isn’t sure if they eat because they have to or if they eat for the pleasure of it), how to do things on their own like grown men should.

But the one thing they struggle with is speech.

It’s as though their bodies physically refuse to let them talk to her in her language. They can’t teach her theirs either, because she’s learned that these men are not suited for teaching others. That’s fine with her, though. She is patient, she never gets mad at them with it, and they always seem grateful when she doesn’t get worked up over their inability to talk like her.

One thing they’re very good at, though, is fumbling over her or making sure she is ok.

Sometimes Madara will make her sit down, make her relax while they do work around the house. He’s a mother hen, making sure she’s sleeping or eating when she should be, showering when she has to, making her sit out in the garden for fresh air, makes her take medicines to help her with the aches and pains (where he got them, she has no idea, though she has the speculation that he made them himself). 

Absolutely a mother hen.

Hashirama on the other hand is the one that cheers her up. If she looks sad or upset, he makes silly faces at her, does stupid things that wind up with him getting hurt and Madara fusing over him as well (the men already have an unbreakable bond, prbably from being in the same garden). He still does it, though, even when scolded in both his mother tongue and foreign. And anytime he succeeds in making her smile the tiniest bit, he does a happy dance which makes her smile more. When she can’t seem to get out of bed, he’s there to pull her out and help her get through the day.

Sometimes, they cuddle with her, or they lay in bed with her, play with her hair or babble about things she doesn’t know. It’s nice.

The day they speak to her is the day she’s the happiest.

It’s at the kitchen table, during a lesson, teaching them social etiquette if they ever want to go beyond their little home. They both look like their thinking, brows pinching, lips turning down.

Madara is the first one to say something. He mumbles. She blinks at him, a flashcard in her hand.

“What was that, Mada?”

“I-Im-ou-t-to.”

She falters. He tries again and it comes out clearer. His voice is deep, rumbly.

“Im-ou-to!”

The cards fall from Sakura’s hands and scatter over the floor.

And then she’s running around the table and launching herself at Madara, all while crying tears of joy. Then she hears Hashirama.

“A-An-Ane-ue.”

She whips around, “What? Hashi, what?”

He tries again, and his voice boisterous and deep, but not like Madara’s, “A-ne-ue!”

She lets out a sound that’s a mix of a sob and a scream and she pulls them into a group hug. They flail, worrying that they did something wrong, and then they see the big, watery smile on her face

They hug her back with just as much ferocity, talking excitedly. This is a huge milestone, after all, they’ve never been able to say a full word before.

That night they all fall asleep on the couch, Sakura sandwiched between them in a tangle of arms and legs and when she wakes up, they’re all wearing flower crowns, formed subconsciously by the men in their sleep.

From that day forward it’s how they address her. It makes her days a little brighter, better. Even if they’re going to come to an end soon. She’s been coughing up those flowers nonstop.

A few months later, a _war_ starts. She’ll have to leave soon, to the battlefield where everyone else is holed up. They need her, need her healing abilities and her juggernaut strength. The day she is set to leave, they give her a bracelet with their flowers on it, a little pop of color to her dark attire. A good luck charm.

And a way to monitor her if anything goes wrong. She knows these flowers came from within them.

She arrives at the battle camp looking like a reaper, accidentally scaring some of the younger shinobi. She chuckles, folding her hands in front of her, feeling along the bracelet. Tsunade is there to greet her. She looks her up and down with a grimace and shakes her head before leading her to a tent that houses the generals and the Konoha twelve.

She walks in, sees Naruto and Sasuke and Kakashi, and promptly ignores the looks of disturbed disbelief thrown her way. And then she freezes.

Hashirama is there, along with the rest of the recently revived Hokages, and she briefly tightens her grip around the bracelet before relaxing. This is not the Hashirama that knows her, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.

She bows to them briefly, unspeaking. 

Lord Second looks at her with judging eyes, “ _This_ is the girl you talk so _highly_ about, Tsunade? She looks like I could poke her and she’d turn to _dust_.”

Ah, she’s heard about Lord Second’s bluntness and snark from Hashirama’s journal, so she is mostly unbothered by it. Instead, she blinks at him. It only serves to make him bristle.

“I assure you, _Lord Second_ ,” and she sounds nothing like herself anymore, “that I am _more_ than capable of doing whatever job you need me to do.”

The bracelet shakes slightly and she moves her hand to hide it. Lord Second squints at her.

Hashirama speaks. She shivers and tries not to break down at the thought that this is what he sounds like when talking.

“Tobirama! Relax! You heard her, she is capable. Besides, I do not doubt Tsuna’s judgement!”

Lord Second huffs and Hashirama lets out a sigh and turns to her.

“I am sorry about him, he is . . . rather _straightforward_ with his thoughts.”

She hums, “As I have gathered. No need to apologise,” she clasps her hands together, and smiles with her too white teeth, “Now, what’s the plan?”

The plan is simply to fight. Lord Second does not trust her. And he especially pays attention when she holds down a coughing fit and swallows her flowers. She does not blame him for not trusting her.

Her heart aches when she sees the man they are fighting.

“HASHIRAMAAAA!” Madara screams, “THERE YOU ARE!” 

She forcefully reminds herself that _that_ Madara doesn’t know her. The bracelet tightens around her wrist,

Sakura is destructive on the battlefield when she fights. When she breaks the earth in two and sends chunks flying, everybody flails. They’re even afraid to let her heal them, afraid that her strength might get in the way.

For hours they fight, fight, fight, and she runs out of power, out of chakra and strength, and then at one point the fighting stops and the crowd is watching a final showdown.

Between Hashirama and Madara.

They’re about to deliver the killing blows to each other. Sakura begins to cough, hacking up colorful petals, and people’s attention are split between the fight and her fit, horror in their eyes when they gaze at her.

She cannot let them kill each other. Because they need Madara alive for questioning and they need Hashirama alive to lead them. Everybody knows this. And a smaller, selfish part of her doesn’t want to see them fall apart like her old team. She sees said teammates get ready to intervene. 

She surges forward, blood and flowers spilling everywhere and barely steady, and runs to get between them. Several people cry out. She lands perfectly, in the direct line of fire.

The sickle of the gunbai guts clean through her neck and the mokuton vine pieces her stomach. No blood falls out. Instead, it tangles with vines. Sakura’s head falls off to reveal plants curling out into the open air. The people gap. Hashirama and Madara do the same.

The secret is _out_.

Sakura Haruno, the girl with the worst case of Hanahaki disease that the world has ever seen.

And then there are two inhuman screeches in the air. The ground opens up. The bracelet explodes into a tangle of life.

Madara finds himself on his back face to face with a rabid clone who looks more like a plant zombie, vines spilling from openings in his skin and a flower bursting from one eye, and Hashirama fights off his own mutilated doppelganger who’s very intent on going for his guts.

It is only when they are driven back from Sakura’s body, when the clones look nothing like humans, do they stop attacking. Instead, they return to the body, huddle around it, and they cry garbled words that don’t make any sense, but the crowd makes out the words “Imouto” and “Aneue”.

It is only later, when the living plants are subdued and brought back for study, when they collect the girl’s body, when everyone retreats and is left feeling confused and hurt and upset, do they understand what happened. They do not have the full story, but they have the larger parts found out.

Sakura’s case was so bad that it got to the point where, in a desperate attempt to stay alive, her body had to create something fake. 

Her love was unrequited to the point of _creation_.

**Author's Note:**

> hope y'all enjoy mwah mwah


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